Alive and Living or Simply Existing ... an interrupted journey has found its voice again.

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Monday, 2 December 2013

How to navigate Customer Service through collaboration

There is no doubt that we are experiencing ‘the age of the consumer’. Research shows that, as those responsible for service adjust to and anticipate changing customer behaviour, business and IT staff are re-engineering end-to-end business processes, while acquiring and deploying suitable supporting technologies. This requires a shift to new ways of working and thus, organizational changes onexecutive level.

In a
Forrester report earlier this year, Kate Leggett looked at top customer service trends that should be taken into account to deliver customer service excellence, assisting companies in understanding key business trends expected to unfold over the next five years.

Among
the trends discussed, it was found that the quality of service delivered is improving
through collaboration, with the adoption of collaboration having increased
considerably in recent years, and expected to surge in the future. The biggest
trend highlighted by the report though, is that collaboration is becoming a
corporate mindset.

This
affects the call centre industry, as it is believed that agent to-agent
collaboration will assist in diminishing agent tier structures that are too rigid,
for an environment that is more collaborative, subsequently increasing
first-contact resolution rates. It is further felt that by relaxing agent tier
structures it will promote more knowledge sharing.

Companies,
through activity streams, around sales opportunities, customer service cases,
and even content, are adopting real-time collaboration. The report points out
the expectation of companies to better connect communities with customer
service technologies, to encourage customer-customer, customer-agent, and agent-agent
collaboration. This, in turn, achieves better incident closure rates and higher
satisfaction. Leveraging activity streams, that are now part of CRM technology,
allows for the adoption of “collaborative environments that cross functional
organizational silos”, which allows interaction of the right resources in ‘near
real time’, to drive business results.

The thinking, that effective collaboration can draw distributed teams and customers closer together, which in turn, leads to better efficiency and stronger relationships with customers, is corroborated by several research reports.

On the other hand, Jesse Wilkins, in an Aiim report titled ‘The Rationale and Requirements for Collaboration’, asks why so many organizations are deploying collaboration tools
or considering them? The report points out that collaboration, without the
necessary culture in place, cannot beforced. As a matter of fact, time and money will be spent without any
substantial benefit, when companies compel users to apply collaboration tools
and requirements.

• Individual processes require user engagement. Technical
support analysts collaborate with each other to resolve customer issues more
efficiently. They might also collaborate with the sales staff to ensure that
customer questions are answered effectively.

• Shared activities motivate collaboration. Project management: everyone has to succeed in order for everyone to succeed. Another example is that of an orchestra—everyone plays different notes at different times, but it all must work togetheror it is just a cacophony of instruments.

• Community participation induces contribution. Good
examples of this include popular wiki projects, both public and internal; many
listservs also support this dynamic.

Remember too, that collaboration happens for other reasons as
well. These may include individuals wanting to share by illustrating their expertise
on a topic, or membership in and the associated status of many social networks.
The common factor is that this is cooperation and collaboration among individuals
that are like-minded. Whether ‘accidental or inadvertent’ collaboration can consist
of information created for a specific reason, which is then used again or
repurposed.

What is more important, is that customers want to collaborate with
companies.

Collaborating
with Customers

Organizations, in collaborating with customers and partners, may be
provided with even greater benefits than when collaborating internally; existing
processes can be made more efficient, as can the creation of new products and services.
More important, a community that cares about the organization and what it does,
is built through effective collaboration with customers and users.

Don Tapscott notes in Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes
Everything, “There are always more smart people outside your enterprise
boundaries than there are inside.”

Companies can channel the energy and expertise of customers’ through
developing knowledge bases and maintaining frequently asked questions (FAQs). Regardless
of how established a business’ support processes, users who have figured out a
way to work around issues encountered can provide vital feedback.

In this respect, Wikis are a good platform, as they allow quick
delivery of corrections and updates, while also supporting security and access at
different levels of, for instance, partners vs. end users. Inclusion of their
expertise into a knowledge base or listing of best practices will specifically
be appreciated by partners. A marketplace for ‘partner-developed templates,
widgets, or integrations could be created by extending this idea; there are
already several vendors who support their partners in this type of approach.

This type of collaboration makes it both easier and cheaper for
partners to find best practices and reusable tools, while it benefits the business
in allowing an exchange of knowledge and information. By inviting users and
partners to collaborate in this fashion, a very loyal community can be created.